Mr. John Curtis:

The Vice Chairman has put his finger on a key point about proportionality and balance in the arguments. In practical terms, we are not that far apart because information is being disseminated according to the RSE guidelines determined by the Department. Schools will have a separate frame. I know the point he is making. We will engage with the RSE review and see what emerges from the consultation but we will also advance the position that in our schools there is a Catholic frame and a set of Catholic values and attitudes that need to be advanced and given to children. There is a dialectic space after that whereby dialogue will be engaged in and people will speak.

I am more concerned about the issue Deputy O'Sullivan raised about parental engagement. We had an awful lot of parental engagement on RSE when the programme emerged in the first instance. Many meetings were held at school level and that created an awareness around it. There was a lot of discussion. That has not occurred recently in as serious a space. There is ongoing consultation with parents at school level in respect of RSE programmes because we have student council meetings. I imagine that as part of this process there will be engagement with parents on a more fundamental level than might hitherto have been the case.

I take the point that we advance a Catholic frame and try to educate the children to have some kind of a moral compass aproposof how they engage. It is hugely important that we get our teachers to engage and that they want to teach in this space. Perhaps there can be a reluctance because it is a complex area. It is a complex area for all of us - for the members and for us. The conversation we are engaging in now will be useful in this sphere.

I take the Vice Chairman's point that there is not that fundamental a difference between us. We have characteristic spirit in our schools. It is enshrined in the Act and is the modus operandiof our schools. However, we operate in partnership with the State, as we always have and always will. We will engage in dialogue with the State on this as on all issues to ensure that partnership can go forward as well. The characteristic spirit is key and crucial to our schools. It is how we fundamentally operate and we would like to think that our Catholic schools are a good example of how a private-public partnership can work.

I will come back to what concerns us at school level, namely, the changing nature of technology, the digital age and the challenges that students are facing on the ground. In the context of proportionality, I would like to go back to the "R" in RSE. Perhaps even in today's debate we are focusing too much on one aspect of this. It is a matter of how children engage with each other, how to get them talking to each other, how to deal with issues around mobile phones, etc., and how we engage parents in a broader conversation. That is useful.

A lot of the activity around the review of RSE resulted from the Belfast case and issues around consent and relationships. That led to forthright and frank conversations around kitchen tables in all households in the country. That is hugely educative for us and perhaps we can use this debate in a broad sense as a springboard to ask parents to engage more. Schools cannot do everything. I take the point Senator Ruane made. We ask so much of our schools now. These are complex spaces and we are overloaded. Of course we will engage with this as best we can.

We are cognisant of the fact that our principals can only do so much. We need resources from the Department in the context of RSE as well. We need programmes whereby our teachers can feel confident in teaching the RSE programme and we need resources in that space.